Geographical position

The administrative center of the region, Bragin township, lies 100km away from Gomel and 25km away from the railway station Khoiniki. Motorways connect the township with Khoiniki, Rechitsa, Loyev and Chernigov. The region is traversed by the railway Chernigov – Ovruch.

The total area of the region is 1,962 square kilometers, the distance from north to south is 93km and from east to west – 46km. The region borders on the Khoiniki and Loyev regions of Gomel oblast and on Chernigov and Kiev oblasts of Ukraine. The southeast corner of Gomel oblast lies wedgewise at the confluence of the rivers of Dnieper and Pripyat.

The region is an undulated plain with sporadically protruding low hills. The average above-sea level is 110-120m.

As for minerals, the region is rich in peat (the overall deposits are 41,9mln tons including the Pogonyanskoye deposit – 18,5mln tons and the Bragin deposit – 6,7mln tons), three deposits of brick materials – 0,2mln cubic meters.

The average air temperature in January is 6,6 degrees centigrade below zero and in July – 18 degrees centigrade above zero. The rainfall is 533mm per annum. The vegetation period is 194 days.

The Dnieper and Braginka rivers together with tributary Nesvich flow across the region. There are a lot of lakes in the Dnieper flood-lands.

Forests cover 28 per cent of the territory of the region, predominantly the northern and southwest parts of it.

The entire area of the Bragin region was contaminated in the aftermath of the Chernobyl catastrophe. Some 120,000ha or more than 60 per cent of the territory of the region have the contamination level of Cs137 equal to 5Ku/km.